.:THE LDS CHURCH DOESN’T ATTACK YOUR CHURCH, SO WHY DO YOU ATTACK OURS?

“I would like to ask why it is you challenge the correctness of the LDS Church? Doesn’t that mean you are condemning its validity? I know that my LDS Church outright says that it is the only correct religion. I can most definitely see how that can be taken as offensive, but it at least doesn’t single out any specific religion (even if some of its members do). I just think that a religion or religious group shouldn’t focus attacks or challenges on another, but rather, should explain why theirs is correct. I don’t think that a group should have to say that another is incorrect, but show how theirs is correct. I don’t have any problem with your ministry saying how it believes that it is correct, but I do feel slightly attacked when it condemns my Church as wrong. …I guess the point of my email is to ask you to tone down your attacks on other groups, yet DO promote the reasons why your ministry is correct without demeaning others.”

Dear friend,

You asked why we “attack” other religions. If your definition of “attack” is to compare beliefs and discuss differences, then I would agree with you that we do this. But in your request, you asked that we would “tone down” our “attack” on other religions by not calling any other religion “incorrect.” At the same time, you asked us to “DO promote the reasons why” our ministry is “correct.” You claimed that your LDS Church “doesn’t single out any specific religion” to attack its beliefs or say that another group is incorrect.

Your statements about your Church are quite confusing. Didn’t Joseph Smith’s claim that “ALL” the churches were “wrong” and “all their creeds were an abomination” and that their “professors were all corrupt” (History 1:19)? In making this claim, didn’t Joseph Smith basically single out and focus on ALL of the churches of his day and “attack” them as “incorrect”? How is this any different from our ministry’s pointing out of the “wrongs” in the LDS Church? If the fact that Joseph Smith “attacked” other churches by saying they were “all wrong” doesn’t offend you, why does the fact that our ministry condemns your church’s beliefs as “wrong” offend you? It sure sounds like you are O.K. with Mormonism dishing out “attacks” on other churches, but you’re not O.K. with receiving “attacks” from those your church condemns. Isn’t this a double standard that you’re holding on to?

You requested that we stop calling other religions “incorrect,” but at the same time “DO promote the reasons why your ministry is correct.” This is quite confusing. What do you mean by this statement? Isn’t the fact that we show the differences between religious faiths, the same thing as “promoting the reasons why” we believe that our views are “correct”? What is the difference? Isn’t your request similar to asking a car salesman to present the reasons his truck is the best on the market, without allowing him to explain the differences between his truck and other trucks? Again, with all due respect, your request sounds like double-speak to us.

After all, don’t the LDS missionaries do the same thing when they come to our doors to show the differences between the “restored gospel” of Mormonism and the “gospel” of other professing Christians. We’re having a difficult time seeing the difference between our ministry’s approach of contrasting differences and the LDS missionaries’ approach of contrasting the differences between their “restored gospel” and the “gospel” of other churches. Maybe the following articles will help you understand our views better: